London Fire Death Toll Rises to 17; Government Is Criticized

LONDON — The death toll rose to 17 and rescue workers continued to search for the missing on Thursday after a lethal fire in a West London apartment tower, as Prime Minister Theresa May came under pressure over whether the tragedy could have been prevented.

The blaze at the 24-story Grenfell Tower injured dozens of people, and fire officials warned that the number of dead was likely to grow: Many residents of the building were still unaccounted for. As of Thursday morning, 37 people were in hospitals, including 17 in critical care.

Firefighters said Wednesday afternoon that there was no hope of finding additional survivors, but the government has appealed for residents to call a hotline as they tried to account for everyone who might have been in the building when the fire broke out. Among those still missing were a young Italian couple who moved to the building several months ago, Italian news outlets reported. The building housed people from many countries, including Eritrea, the Philippines, Somalia and Sudan.

Investigators continued to comb through the wreckage with help from search dogs. Commissioner Dany Cotton of the London Fire Brigade said firefighters had searched all 24 floors of the tower, but that safety concerns had circumscribed the search in some areas, including the top floors, where, she said, “very small pockets of fire” remained.

LONDON — The death toll rose to 17 and rescue workers continued to search for the missing on Thursday after a lethal fire in a West London apartment tower, as Prime Minister Theresa May came under pressure over whether the tragedy could have been prevented.

The blaze at the 24-story Grenfell Tower injured dozens of people, and fire officials warned that the number of dead was likely to grow: Many residents of the building were still unaccounted for. As of Thursday morning, 37 people were in hospitals, including 17 in critical care.

Firefighters said Wednesday afternoon that there was no hope of finding additional survivors, but the government has appealed for residents to call a hotline as they tried to account for everyone who might have been in the building when the fire broke out. Among those still missing were a young Italian couple who moved to the building several months ago, Italian news outlets reported. The building housed people from many countries, including Eritrea, the Philippines, Somalia and Sudan.

Investigators continued to comb through the wreckage with help from search dogs. Commissioner Dany Cotton of the London Fire Brigade said firefighters had searched all 24 floors of the tower, but that safety concerns had circumscribed the search in some areas, including the top floors, where, she said, “very small pockets of fire” remained.

Mrs. May, already under pressure after a series of terrorist attacks and an election in which her Conservative Party lost its majority, visited the area of the fire, in the North Kensington neighborhood on Thursday, as did the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. The political fallout from the tragedy intensified as members of Parliament demanded to know why fire safety standards at the tower had not been more rigorous.

Among those being scrutinized was Gavin Barwell, who was housing minister in Mrs. May’s government until last week, when he lost his seat in the general election. He was then appointed Mrs. May’s chief of staff. Critics say that a much-needed review of fire safety regulations had been dragging on for months, under his watch.

After six people died and more than 20 were injured in a 2009 fire in Lakanal House, a tower block in Camberwell, in Southeast London, a parliamentary group had called for a review of fire safety rules, while an inquest advised the government to urge that sprinklers be installed in high-rise buildings.

The Grenfell Action Group, an association of residents of Grenfell Tower, had complained for years that the local council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which owns the building, and the company that managed the property had repeatedly ignored their concerns that the building posed a fire hazard.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but the police have ruled out terrorism.

The many questions being asked include whether a “stay put” fire protocol, which called for residents to remain in their apartments if there was a fire elsewhere in the building, might have turned a lethal fire even more deadly; what role aluminum exterior cladding, installed as part of a renovation completed last year, might have played in the fire’s rapid spread; and whether sprinklers and alarm systems had been in place and functioning properly.

Meriam Antur, who lived on the 19th floor of the tower, was one of many residents who said she was told to stay put, despite sirens and smoke that created panic. “My friend came in and said we had to wait for the firemen and couldn’t go down,” she said, recalling that as smoke entered the apartment, she tried to block it with a wet towel under the door, and began to pray.

“My children were crying, and I’m pregnant,” she said, clasping her belly. “I was so scared. I thought we were going to die.”

Matthew Needham-Laing, an architect and engineering lawyer who specializes in cases dealing with building defects, said the dark smoke that had engulfed the building was a telltale sign of burning cladding material.

“It looks to me like a cladding fire,” he said. The material in the cladding, he added, is “flame retardant, so it doesn’t catch fire as easily, but the temperatures you’re talking about are often 900, 1,000 degrees centigrade, and in those conditions, any material will generally burn.”

Sian Berry, chairwoman of the Housing Committee of the London Assembly, told the BBC’s “Today” program that she was concerned that fire risk assessments in high-rise buildings were less strenuous than they should be, because the onus was on the owners of buildings rather than on the fire service.

“It used to be the case that the fire brigade would go in, inspect, make very prescriptive requirements on the building owners, before they would get a safety certificate,” she said. “Now it’s not like that — it is less rigorous.”

Ms. Berry added in a statement that she was dismayed that no central fire alarms and fire drills were required for residential buildings, unlike in office buildings, and she expressed alarm that concerns about fire safety voiced by residents of Grenfell Tower before the tragedy had been ignored.

“It is clear that an inquiry will be needed to look at risk assessments, what was done during the recent refurbishment and whether people had the right advice for what to do,” she said.

David Lammy, a Labour lawmaker representing Tottenham, in Northeast London, told the BBC that he considered the fire to be “corporate manslaughter.” “This is the richest borough in our country treating its citizens in this way, and we should call it what it is,” he said. “It is corporate manslaughter. That’s what it is. And there should be arrests made, frankly. It is an outrage.”

He said that after knocking on housing estate doors across the country during recent elections, he had seen that many buildings had antiquated fire standards and poor conditions.

“Those ’70s buildings, many of them should be demolished,” he told the BBC. “They have not got easy fire escapes. They have got no sprinklers. It is totally, totally unacceptable in Britain that this is allowed to happen and that people lose their lives in this way. People should be held to account.”

Eddie Daffarn, a 16th-floor resident who is a member of the Grenfell Action Group, said he was only alerted to the fire by his neighbor’s smoke detector.

“The only alarm that went off was my neighbor’s smoke alarm. I thought he had burned some chips,” he said, referring to French fries. “I opened the door and there was smoke, loads of smoke, so then I closed it and thought: This is a real fire, not my mate’s chip pan.”

A friend who lived on the fifth floor phoned and urged him to flee, he said.

“I wrapped a towel around me, and opened the door,” Mr. Daffarn recalled. “The smoke was so thick and heavy I couldn’t see anything. I thought: ‘This is me, I’m a goner.’”

He finally descended and was helped by a firefighter.

“I am lucky to be alive,” he said.

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